Back and Forth
by WaitingAmy
Summary: Charlotte Hastings, a passionate librarian in her early thirties, loves to read, would book a vacation in Austenland willingly, drink nothing but tea for the rest of her life and die being the happy owner of 20 dogs. But one special egg and a tiny misunderstanding are about to turn her world upside down. Rated M for possible language at the moment.


_**Let's give this a try then, shall we?**_

 _ **Feedback would be greatly appreciated! :)**_

 _Red. Black. Red. Black. Red. Black._

Charlotte was sitting on the lonely wooden chair under the lightbulb, which was currently swinging back and forth, with her eyes closed.

 _Red. Black. Red. Black. Red. Bla-_

"I said look at me!"

She opened her eyes and stared at the two men in front of her. They were wearing black ski masks and, if the situation wouldn't have been so serious and, let's be honest, terrifying, she would have started to laugh, for one of the masked men had apparently never bothered to cut off the price tag, for it was still attached to his mask.

 _Back and forth. Back and forth._

It was warm in the small stuffy room, which was completely empty besides its three current inhabitants and the one sole piece of furniture to which Charlotte found herself bound by the wrists and ankles. Painfully bound, to be precise.

She couldn't remember exactly how long she'd been there by now. Maybe hours. Or a day. Judging by her condition and by the sweat that trickled down her arms and along her raw wrists, more like a bit over a day. She'd left her flat, in a downpour if she remembered correctly, hailed for a taxi, got into the vehicle and – nothing. She only remembered a weird smell.

But the smell in this small room was even worse. She couldn't even place it exactly, but it smelled like sewer and decay and rotten clothes.

"Hey!" One of the men kicked her leg. "No daydreaming, sugar…"

Charlotte had to fight the eyeroll. What's it with men and those weird 'terms of endearment'?

"I don't even know what you are talking about!" Charlotte said exasperated for the umpteenth time since they had tied her to that chair. At least it felt like it. They kept on asking her for information on some kind of egg. The 'egg of essence', that's what they called it. And she had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. She was, of course, well aware of her precarious situation, but she was thirsty, hot and tired… really tired.

The left guy laughed at her.

"That's what you keep telling us… but our boss was, or is, pretty sure that you know exactly what we are talking about!" The last part was shouted right into her face and Charlotte hat to admit that by now, if not already before, she was indeed terrified.

She closed her eyes again.

 _Red. Black. Red. Black. Red. Black._

 _Black._

Charlotte's eyes flew open. For a few seconds the light was out and she heard her two captors shuffling around the room in panic.

"It is not - in fact never, under any circumstances, appropriate nor acceptable to talk to a lady in this manner."

That was not the voice of any of the two men. _British!_ was the thought that appeared in Charlotte's mind within a second of hearing the words spoken by an unseen entity.

The lightbulb sprang back to life and started to violently swing as a fight ensued.

 _Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth._

In between the short amount of time, when Charlotte's eyes were actually able to identify anything in her suroundings, she could make out flashes of a grey suit. Each movement of the unknown new, and now fourth, inhabitant of the room, seemed to be followed by a cry of pain from the two bastards that had questioned her for the better part of the past few hours.

Charlotte closed her eyes again.

 _Black. Red. Black. Red._

It almost had something hypnotic to it, this play of light and shadow.

So now someone else thought it worth his time to come and get her. And she was so tired…

He also probably just wanted to question her on the matter of this mysterious egg. "What an egg it must be…" she mumbled and imagined a golden chicken in a safe somewhere, locked up and not able to produce more than one special egg.

She sighed. "I'm delusional." And so tired…

Charlotte closed her eyes again, felt something, or someone, hit her chair with such force, that the chair, and her, fell over to the right. Her head hit the floor with a thud and everything went black. Completely.

"I found her. Yes. She's injured. Yes. I'll get her out of here."

 _Red. Glaring white. Red. Glaring white…_

Charlotte's eyes fluttered open to be greeted by a blurry world with no fixed contours or outlines. Just blotches of various colours. But mostly just by white.

And a constant beeping sound.

She was alone, all by herself. And even though this was preferable over the last company she kept so involuntarily, she also felt a bit… off. Not sad or disappointed, but maybe a bit disturbed.

Where was the man in grey? How had she gotten here? And most importantly…

 _Was she still in danger?_

As if right on cue, she lost consciousness again.

She woke again a few hours later to the smell of a bouquet of flowers on her table and the friendly smile of a nurse.

"There you are, darling. Poor you, so dehydrated… and a nasty bump to your head. That must have been one fall!" She said in a soothing voice.

 _Fall?_

"You should know better than to go climbing all by yourself, young lady", the nurse continued. "You could have died, if your friend hadn't found you in time…"

 _My friend? The flash of grey?_

The nurse put a glass of water to her dry lips and Charlotte took a sip.

"Thank you…" she whispered.

"You're most welcome! Now try to sleep some more. I'll come on to check on you again in a while."

The nurse left the room and dimmed the lights a bit.

Charlotte's eyes relaxed immediately, but not the rest of her.

She remembered being questioned under terrible conditions by two very menacing men. And then she was rescued, apparently, by a person wearing a grey suit with incredible fighting skills. And then she must have been brought to this hospital, where everyone thought she had had an accident while climbing somewhere all by herself.

It didn't make any sense to her.

And while pondering over this mystery, she fell back to sleep and dreamt of a weird smeeling green egg in a safe.


End file.
